Do you care about your work?

I’m a 33F in a perfectly fine 9-5 corporate job. I’m a Project Manager, I make decent pay, I’m not passionate about my job, but I don’t dread workdays either. I have a good work/life balance and have lots of hobbies and a long-term partner and a daughter and I very rarely work overtime (perk of living in Europe). I use all my vacation time and just generally, I feel like I have a pretty healthy view of how work fits into my life.

The problem is whenever I talk about my work, just things that are frustrating or a project not on track or a colleague who said XYZ or whatever, I’m inevitably told I need to “care less”. Not in a mean way, more in like a concerned way. I don’t think I care an irrational amount, but it’s true that I don’t often meet people who “bring work home” in the form of conversations or frustrations. To be clear, I don’t work when I shouldn’t be. I have firm boundaries. I guess I just talk about my job with my partner/sister/friends in a way other people don’t?

Do you care about your work, even if you don’t care about your job? Are you able to flip off the “I care” switch when you turn off your computer? How?